Dallas Needs More Open Kitchens So We Can Nerd Out Over Our Chefs

More kitchens should have adjacent bars like this one at Lark on the Park

There's a second bar at Dee Lincoln's Steak and Burger Bar that has me thinking. The new Uptown restaurant is the subject of this week's review, and in addition to the regular bar where the beer, wine and other good stuff happens, another large bar wraps around the kitchen. From the stools you can watch the cooks flipping burgers, wiping plates and doing all sorts of other chef-type things.

It would be an amazing place to sit and saw through a steak, but it's not very comfortable to sit there. Not to mention the show isn't that exciting and a large pizza oven sits dark and dormant, taking up a sizeable portion of the kitchen space.

Contrast this with the bar at Lark on the Park, which I think might be the best space to watch a kitchen staff work in all of Dallas. The bar extends well past the taps and coolers to flank the kitchen prep area and cooking stations, and you can even catch a glimpse of the pass. If you're a culinary nerd, it's an exciting place to sit any time of the day. So many people hooked on fluffy reality TV shows that mimic restaurant cooking when you can sit here and watch the real thing unfold. And someone else has to bring you a beer.

Lucia has an amazing bar for watching kitchen antics as well. There are only four stools, but you can practically lean over the cold prep station, and peer over the pass and into the kitchen. The seats that line up against the kitchen in Spoon offer a similar show. Open kitchens have become a trend because we want to see our favorite chefs in action. It would be nice if more restaurants would start to take this desire into account in their design and give us a seat that lets us see it all happen.